Tag Archive: Uncategorized

Chinese Gold Market: Still in the Driving Seat

2018-07-20

by

2018-07-20

With the first half of 2018 now behind us, it’s an opportune time to look at whats been happening in the Chinese Gold Market. As a reminder, China is the largest gold producer in the world, the largest gold importer in the world, and China’s Shanghai Gold Exchange is the largest physical gold exchange in the world.

Read More »

Gold’s Price Performance: Beyond the US Dollar

2018-07-04

by

2018-07-04

With the first half of 2018 now drawn to a close, much of the financial medias’ headlines and commentary relating to the gold market has been focusing on the fact that the US dollar gold price has moved lower year-to-date. Specifically, from a US dollar price of $1302.50 at close on 31 December 2017, the price of gold in US dollar terms has slipped by approximately 3.8% over the last six months to around $1252.50, a drop of US $50.

Read More »

Sovereign Money Referendum: A Swiss Awakening to Fractional-Reserve Banking?

2018-06-12

by

2018-06-12

On Sunday 10 June 2018, Switzerland’s electorate voted on a referendum calling for the country’s commercial banks to be banned from creating money. In a country world-famous for its banking industry, this was quite an interesting turn of events. Known as the Sovereign Money Initiative or ‘Vollgeld’, the referendum was brought to the Swiss electorate in the form of a ‘Popular Initiative‘.

Read More »

Turkey and Russia Highlight Gold’s Role as a Strategically Important Asset

2018-05-03

by

2018-05-03

US Federal Reserve Bank Gold Holdings, Mar 2016 - 2018
On 17 April, Turkish news publication Ahval published a report stating that during 2017, Turkey withdrew 26.8 tonnes of gold that it had stored in the vaults of the New York Federal Reserve, and moved this gold under the custodianship of the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The source of the Ahval report was a Turkish language article from the popular Hürriyet newspaper in Turkey.

Read More »

Spoofing Futures and Banging Fixes: Same Banks, Same Trading Desks

2018-04-22

by

2018-04-22

Commodity Futures Trading Commision
On 29 January 2018, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Division of Enforcement together with the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice and the FBI announced criminal and civil enforcement actions against 3 global investment banks and 5 traders for involvement in trade spoofing in precious metals futures contracts on the US-based Commodity Exchange (COMEX).

Read More »

US Gold & Silver Futures Markets: “Easy” Targets

2018-04-13

by

2018-04-13

Video Game Sports
Following news coverage of the charging of five precious metals traders and three banks in January, Commodities Futures Trading Commission and Department of Justice documents reveal a global criminal cabal of 16 traders operating in at least four major financial institutions between 2008 and 2015 to defraud COMEX gold and silver futures markets.

Read More »

China’s Secret Gold Supplier Is Singapore

2018-04-11

by

2018-04-11

Exports and Imports Preview
Since 2013 China continues to absorb physical gold from the rest of the world at a staggering pace. Worth noting is that gold imported into the Chinese domestic market is not allowed to be returned in the foreseeable future. Because ownership and the disposition of these volumes of gold likely will be of great importance next time around the international monetary system is under stress, it’s well worth tracking China’s progress of imports –...

Read More »

Central Banks Care about the Gold Price – Enough to Manipulate it!

2018-03-30

by

2018-03-30

Gold for Oil
In early March, RT.com, the Russian based media network, asked me for comments and opinion on the subject of central bank manipulation of gold prices. The comments and opinion that I supplied to RT became the article that RT then exclusively published on its website on 18 March under the title “Central banks manipulating & suppressing gold prices – industry expert to RT“. This article is now transcribed below, here on the BullionStar website.

Read More »

Why the World’s Central Banks hold Gold – In their Own Words

2018-03-22

by

2018-03-22

World Official Gold Holdings, February 2018
Collectively, the central bank sector claims to hold the world’s largest above ground gold bar stockpile, some 33,800 tonnes of gold bars. Individually within this group, some central banks claim to be the top holders of gold bullion in the world, with individual holdings in the thousands of tonnes range.

Read More »

US Gold Reserves, Of Immense Interest to Russia and China

2018-01-22

by

2018-01-22

Russia China Real Gold Standart
Recently, Russian television network RT extensively quoted me in a series of articles about the US Government’s gold reserves. The RT articles, published on the RT.com website, were based on a series of questions RT put to me about various aspects of the official US gold reserves. These gold reserves are held by the US Treasury, mostly in the custody of the US Mint. The US Mint is a branch of the US Treasury.

Read More »

Gold Prices Rise To $1,326/oz as China U.S. Treasury Buying Report Creates Volatility

2018-01-11

by

2018-01-11

Gold Price in US Dollar, 10-11 January 2018
Gold prices rise to $1,326/oz on concerns China may slow U.S. Treasury buying. Equities fell sharply on the report as did Treasurys and the U.S. dollar. Chinese officials think U.S. debt is becoming less attractive compared to other assets. Trade tensions could provide a reason to slow down or halt U.S. debt purchases. U.S. dollar vulnerable as China remains biggest buyer of U.S. sovereign debt. Currency wars to return as China rejects U.S....

Read More »

10 Reasons Why You Should Add To Your Gold Holdings

2018-01-10

by

2018-01-10

Gold Price and S&P 500 Index, 2000 - 2017
10 Reasons Why You Should Add To Your Gold Holdings. Gold currently undervalued. Since 2000, the gold price has beaten the S&P 500 Index. A ‘a once-in-a-decade opportunity’ as gold-to-S&P 500 ratio is at its lowest point in 10 years. Reached ‘peak gold’ as exploration budgets continue to tighten. $80 trillion sits in global equities, a ‘ticking time bomb’. Gold remains an appealing diversifier in the current environment of high valuations and...

Read More »

Russia, China and BRICS: A New Gold Trading Network

2017-12-12

by

2017-12-12

Deputy Governors
One of the most notable events in Russia’s precious metals market calendar is the annual “Russian Bullion Market” conference. Formerly known as the Russian Bullion Awards, this conference, now in its 10th year, took place this year on Friday 24 November in Moscow. Among the speakers lined up, the most notable inclusion was probably Sergey Shvetsov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s central bank, the Bank of Russia.

Read More »

Bailins Coming In EU – 114 Italian Banks Have Non Performing Loans Exceeding Tangible Assets

2017-12-09

by

2017-12-09

Banks with Texas Highest Rate
Bailins Coming In EU – 114 Italian Banks Have NP Loans Exceeding Tangible Assets. Italy opposes ECB proposal that holds banks to firm deadlines for writing down bad loans. Italy’s banks weighed down under €318bn of bad loans. New ECB rules could ‘derail’ any recovery in Italy’s financial system. Draft proposal requires banks to provision fully for loans that turn sour from 2018. ECB insists banks have better access to collateral on delinquent debt...

Read More »

China Gold Import Jan-Sep 777t. Who’s Supplying?

2017-11-14

by

2017-11-14

Gold Supply and Demand Data, 2013 - Q3 2017
While the gold price is slowly crawling upward in the shadow of the current cryptocurrency boom, China continues to import huge tonnages of yellow metal. As usual, Chinese investors bought on the price dips in the past quarters, steadfastly accumulating for a rainy day.

Read More »

Neck and Neck: Russian and Chinese Official Gold Reserves

2017-10-17

by

2017-10-17

Russian Central Bank Gold Reserves, 1994 - 2016
Official gold reserve updates from the Russian and Chinese central banks are probably one of the more closely watched metrics in the gold world. After the US, Germany, Italy and France, the sovereign gold holdings of China and Russia are the world’s 5th and 6th largest. And with the gold reserves ‘official figures’ of the US, Germany, Italy and France being essentially static, the only numbers worth watching are those of China and Russia.

Read More »

The Gold-Backed-Oil-Yuan Futures Contract Myth

2017-10-16

by

2017-10-16

Share of Global Payments, Oct 2010 - Jul 2017
On September 1, 2017, the Nikkei Asian Review published an article titled, “China sees new world order with oil benchmark backed by gold”, written by Damon Evans. Just below the headline in the introduction it states, “China is expected shortly to launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold in what analysts say could be a game-changer for the industry”. Not long after the Nikkei piece was released ‘the story’ was...

Read More »

The West lost at least another 1000 tonnes of large gold bars in 2015

2017-08-14

by

2017-08-14

Kilobars
Over the last number of years, one of the most interesting trends in the physical gold world is the ongoing conversion of large 400 ounce gold bars into smaller high purity 1 kilogram gold bars to meet the insatiable demand of Asian gold markets such as China and India.

Read More »

Estimated Chinese Gold Reserves Surpass 20,000t

2017-08-02

by

2017-08-02

Shanghai Gold Exchange Vaults, Jan 2009 - June 2017
My best estimate as of June 2017 with respect to total above ground gold reserves within the Chinese domestic market is 20,193 tonnes. The majority of these reserves are held by the citizenry, an estimated 16,193 tonnes; the residual 4,000 tonnes, which is a speculative yet conservative estimate, is held by the Chinese central bank the People’s Bank of China.

Read More »

Did The Dutch Central Bank Lie About Its Gold Bar List?

2017-07-25

by

2017-07-25

The-Netherlands-Official-Gold-Reserves-Locations
Head of the Financial Markets Division of the Dutch central bank, Aerdt Houben, stated in an interview for newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad published in October 2016 that releasing a bar list of the Dutch official gold reserves “would cost hundreds of thousands of euros”. In this post we’ll expose this is virtually impossible – the costs to publish the bar list should be close to zero – and speculate about the far reaching implications of this...

Read More »